stayed in the darkness with you
by Immoroita
Summary: "you're such a fucking nerd." "shut up." — [blackquills.]


**Foreword: **The Blackquill siblings made my life infinitely better.

Simon also tells Aura to shut up quite a lot in this fic. This aspect is based off my own relationship with my younger brother. Having a sibling is truly a wonderful thing.

* * *

He enters the visiting room with an oddly nervous expression on his face, hands still hanging close together in front of him. Aura's guess would be that he's just too used to being shackled. She grins at him through the glass when he takes a seat, shifting about to get comfortable.

"Simon," she drawls, right arm on the table, and rests her chin in her left hand. The cracked wood beneath her arms feels different than the warm, buzzing metal of Clonco. A lot of things feel different here. She doesn't know how her little brother survived so long in a place like this.

"No eagle today?"

Simon mumbles something unintelligible, looking sulky_._

"What was that?"

"They – the security didn't let Taka in."

"Aw, chin up, little puppy. I'm sure they're taking wonderful care of her."

"I left her on a tree until I got back. I wouldn't let her stay with people who don't appreciate the majesty of eagles."

"You're such a fucking nerd."

"Shut up."

"Nice of you to come visit me here, though."

"Yes, well," Simon shoots back, mouth twitching in the obnoxious smirk that always got him beaten up when they were kids. "I thought I should fulfill my duties as the closest remaining member of your family."

"I was never very good at that sort of thing," Aura says thoughtfully, stare trained resolutely on his face. "If I recall correctly, I visited you about three times in the seven years you were locked up."

"As if I would ever follow your example on anything."

"Ha! As well you shouldn't."

Aura's grin fades slightly as she leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. "You didn't come just to chitchat about us, did you?"

"No," Simon says ruefully, and produces a pile of reports, profiles, and other official-looking documents.

"I came to talk about your trial."

"Oh, joy," Aura grumbles, because thinking about her upcoming trial puts a bad taste in her mouth. She's not ashamed or repentant of what she did; if not for her actions, the mystery of seven years past would remain unsolved for all eternity, and her little brother would be lying in the morgue.

Honestly, why can't they just decide her sentence without a pointless trial that everyone knows the result of before it even begins?

"So, Simon, my dear brother," she says, tipping her head to the left a little. "Will you be prosecuting my case?"

"Yes."

"I've already confessed to the hostage-taking. You have quite an easy job ahead of you. I think this means you owe me a few favors."

"I'm here because – uh. I wanted to get some facts straight so I can – ugh." Simon looks quite pained as he speaks. "So that I can get your sentence reduced."

"Aw, brother," Aura coos, clasping her hands together dramatically and leaning forward to flutter her eyelashes at him. "You really do care!"

"Shut up."

"Haha. But, still. I don't think getting me a reduced sentence is your job, Mister big-shot Prosecutor."

"Look," he says, looking exasperated, and pauses in flipping through the documents he's laid out in front of him. "You've said you don't want a defense attorney, which means they'll give you a crappy state lawyer who doesn't really care about you."

"Right. I remember now. Nobody cares about me except you. Don't you, softy?"

"I told you to shut up about that!"

Aura laughs so loudly that the bailiff standing by the door looks over to see if something's wrong. It's been a long time since she's been able to tease her brother like this. It's a lot of fun because he makes it so _easy._

"Anyway, um … ugh." The pained look is back.

Aura quirks her eyebrow with an inquisitive smile. "Spit it out."

"I asked Cykes-dono if she would help me get your sentence reduced." Simon looks incredibly ashamed. "She said yes."

"Ah," Aura says. "So that's why she came in yesterday and tried to get me to talk to her. Didn't work at all."

"That's why I'm here. She thought I'd be able to get more information out of you."

A scowl. "I don't _need _a defense attorney, Simon."

"Yes, you do," Simon insists, returning to his files. "I can't have you being locked up for too long. I'd like to … tch."

Aura sees his right eye twitch.

"I'd like to be on the same side of the glass as you, for once. Sometime soon."

"Go burn down a house or something. You'll be arrested again and we'll be prison buds."

"You know what I meant."

"Hm. Yeah. I do."

Aura watches him carefully as silence settles over them and Simon runs a finger down the list of hostages that she took. There are plenty of things about Simon she doesn't like, but the one she dislikes most by far is his ability to be so _nice _to her, even when she's always treated him terribly. In their youth, she'd slap him across the face when she was mad at him, but he'd always brush it off and buy her chocolate ice cream to pacify her.

Honestly. Simon's honorable behavior infuriates her. Aura has always teased him about wanting to be a samurai, but it's clear to her now that perhaps he always was.

"You didn't actually _hurt _any of the hostages, did you?" Simon asks absentmindedly, flipping over to the charges against her.

"I _threatened_ to hurt them in front of the blue lawyer," Aura says nonchalantly, scratching her right ear. "Otherwise, I just left them alone. That little girl in the ridiculous costume did magic tricks."

"Okay." Simon notes it down. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It doesn't. It's just amazing how she managed to pull so many things out of her panties."

Simon pauses and looks up at her.

"What?"

"Pff! Are you into that, Simon? I don't need to know about my little brother's sexual secrets, thanks. And, just so you know, she's, like, sixteen – "

"Shut – shut up!"

His face turns roughly the color of Apollo's vest. Aura chuckles at his discomfort and rests her chin on her hand once again.

"Aw, this is nice, isn't it? We're bonding, right?"

"Not at all," Simon grumbles.

"You love it."

"Do not."

"Do too."

Another silence takes ahold of them, but a more comfortable one this time. Aura can almost pretend that the glass between them isn't really there and that they're sitting in their childhood home, talking about something that isn't the upcoming trial that will decide her fate.

"Remember not to pull your punches out there, Simon," Aura says, finally, after the silence gets too deafening.

"I don't intend to," Simon replies, and smirks at her so haughtily that Aura nearly punches the glass. "I have an obligation to do my job properly. Your fate will be entirely in the hands of – "

"The princess," Aura interrupts. "Yes, I'm pretty sure I know who she is."

"She is nothing like her mother, is she?" Simon says quietly – so quietly that Aura has to strain to hear him.

She _harrumphs _and crosses her arms. "No, she really isn't. Metis was a genius. Our yellow-clad princess is anything but."

"She's awfully perceptive."

"Perception does not a genius make, Simon."

"I suppose not. It almost got her convicted of murder, after all."

"Speaking of which – what's going on with our mystery man?"

"We've been questioning him," Simon mutters, and Aura can sense that he doesn't really want to talk about it. "He's not cooperating and keeps asking to be executed. But we made some real progress yesterday."

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm not allowed to tell you about it, though."

"Tch! Stingy."

"I could lose my job if I told you."

"I don't see how that would matter at all, but whatever you want, I guess."

Simon rolls his eyes. "_Confidentiality, _Aura."

"If it weren't for me, you never would've caught the guy, right?"

"I suppose."

"So, the way I see it, I'm entitled to _some _knowledge."

"Sorry, sis," Simon says, smirking at her again, and Aura wonders how many times he can smirk at her before she can't stand it anymore, actually assaults him, and gets even more jail time. In her opinion, assault should definitely be legal if the victim is being a douchebag. "But that's just not how things at the Prosecutor's Office work."

"You high-and-mighty prosecutors think you rule the world," Aura grumbles, pouting in an only slightly exaggerated expression of her disappointment. "So, how's it going? Think you can get my sentence down to house arrest for a few months plus community service?"

"Dream on," is the snarky response. "You're going to be spending some time in the clink, I'm afraid."

"Gross. Why don't you just give me the death penalty?"

"Not so bad once you get used to it. And don't joke about that." He tacks the second sentence on as though it's an afterthought.

"One of my policies is to never spend more than three hours anywhere smelly and damp," Aura explains, ignoring the second part. She knows where to draw the line. "Jail is smelly, damp, and full of murderers. Get me out as soon as possible."

"I thought you didn't need a defense attorney."

"I – God, Simon! Stop being so right about everything. It's annoying."

Simon laughs – a low laugh that erupts at the base of his throat – and continues flipping through the files, tactfully deciding not to rub it in her face. "You took the twelve hostages to force a retrial to occur, right?"

"That's the stuffy way of putting it."

"Did you have any previous connection to any of the hostages?"

"Only with the blue lawyer's daughter. I took her 'cause she was wandering around, anyway, and I knew she'd definitely get him to do the retrial, in case he was too heartless to care about the other hostages. But for the others, I just grabbed the dopiest-looking people I could find."

Her brother glances up at her for a moment. "Maybe don't use those exact words."

"Right. Of course. Morons don't like being called morons."

"That's – okay. Fair enough." Simon shrugs a little and notes it down. Aura leans as far forward as she can to see what he's writing.

_Previous connection to one hostage (T. Wright). Took others based on how dopey they looked._

"Truly the words of a professional, brother. I'm proud of you," Aura says, and Simon scowls a little.

"I'm just writing it down in terms that even a defense attorney would understand."

"Right. They really are a bunch of bumbling fools. But … I guess they're necessary."

"Of course. Or else I'd be facing my judgment before the judges of Hades right now."

"I thought you were a Japanese wannabe."

"I am. I mean – I'm not – shut up!"

"Why are you into Greek mythology all of a sudden?"

"I – I just think that the death and afterlife portrayed in Greek mythology is more intriguing than – "

"I don't really care."

"Oh. Thanks. Warms my heart."

"No problem. That's what sisters are for."

For what seems like the first time in years, Aura smiles. A real smile – the kind of smile that is born out of real happiness and is not intended to mock or spite. When she looks up, Simon is smiling, too, with the same genuineness.

"Feels like forever, right?"

She doesn't need to explain what she's talking about.

"Yeah," Simon says.

"I'd be a lot happier right now if I wasn't sitting in a chair that's sort of damp. And, also, I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of gum and boogers under the seat."

Simon makes the most disgusted face that Aura has ever seen. "I didn't need you to tell me that."

"What? You were in prison for seven years. Surely that's not the worst you've ever heard? You were locked up with a bunch of convicted murderers, for God's sake."

"Yeah, well … " All of a sudden, Simon looks serious, and Aura decides that perhaps she's about to hear some very interesting information about his days in prison.

"You know about the dark age of the law?"

"Of course."

"The dark age of the law involved a lot of false charges. I met a lot of innocent people during my time in the clink. Most of them were convicted because of either a lack of evidence or forged evidence. The real murderers got off on technicalities."

"Oh." Aura purses her lips. "I guess I'm special, then. The only one who actually committed a crime. I should get a prison medal for that."

"I would advise against making jokes like that," Simon insists, and Aura glowers, but does not speak.

"Plenty of them were innocent, but being declared guilty made a bunch of them go insane."

"Good thing you were already insane before you got convicted, then. Sorry," Aura adds hastily as Simon opens his mouth, presumably to chastise her, and she can't believe that she's apologizing to him for something like this. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."

"Point is, prison protects the outside world from you, and vice versa, but it doesn't protect you from the other inmates. Watch yourself."

"Valuable life lessons from my little brother," Aura grumbles. "But that's not going to the change the fact that it's smelly and damp in there."

"You just have to get used to it."

"Never."

"Fine. Whatever."

"So … " Aura searches for more things to say, and certainly, it seems as though there are a lot of things that are still unsaid, but she can't quite put any of them into words. "Are we done here?"

"Yeah, I think so," Simon says, somewhat reluctantly, as though he doesn't want to leave just yet, but he similarly doesn't have very much left to say. "Um … your defense attorney will be over tomorrow. You ought to cooperate with her if you don't want to sit in a prison cell for the next twenty years."

"Fine. I'll cooperate with the princess."

"Okay."

He stands and gathers his files, and mills about for a while, unsure how to properly make his exit. Aura rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.

"Try walking out the door, Simon."

"Right. Good call. Um … goodbye, Aura. I'll see you at the trial."

"See you then," Aura calls as he leaves quite hastily, and remains seated for a long while, staring at the empty space Simon had been occupying previously.

She snaps her fingers at the bailiff quite suddenly; he snaps awake. "Bailiff! Take me back to my disgusting excuse for a cell."

Perhaps, Aura reflects as she's being led back to her cell, she ought to be a little kinder to her brother. It's not as though they have anyone else to turn to anymore.

And, perhaps one day, she'll make her peace with the court system and befriend those silly defense attorneys. But she can't see that happening for a long time.


End file.
